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I'm a memory keeper through and through.

I love documenting my life and the stories of my family. You might remember me talking about this when I shared the three things I geek out about in the fall.

I’m also all about legacy. I believe it’s so important to know how you want to make your mark on this world, and I talked about having a big picture vision for your life in this post.

One part of my legacy is being creative and crafty. I love making things for the sake of making and making things for the people I love. This includes scrapbooks/photobooks of my life and the life of my family.

I love documenting our adventures and the relationships we share.

I look at our life through the lens of “What do I want to remember when I’m 85?” and “What do I hope I never forget?” THAT’S what I record.

Documenting our lives over many years has changed my life in several ways. I have so much more gratitude for my life and the experiences we’ve had.

Seeing our lives in photos and stories gives me a great perspective on all that we’ve seen and done. There’s nothing like grabbing an album from a few years ago, looking through it, and being reminded of things I’d forgotten. I always walk away feeling grateful I have those memories recorded and also feeling grateful for all the time together and experiences we had.

As we go through our day to day life, it’s easy to forget how much happens in a year or how much our children have grown or all the places we’ve been. Seeing these memories all together helps to cultivate gratitude for all of it.

Memory keeping is a great way for me to express my creativity.

I create scrapbooks in a variety of ways. With pretty paper and embellishments, digitally on my computer, and in an app on my iPad.

Over the years, I’ve learned to use photoshop and I’ve learned a lot about design principles. I’m so grateful for online learning and the fellow memory keepers that have taught me what I know.

I also express my creativity through photography. I think my love of photography happened first...I’ve always been a documentor. The scrapbooking came along as a way to do something with all the photos I had, especially once my children were born.

Memory keeping is a great way to work through my feelings and record my feelings in real time.

I think the writing and journaling is one of my favorite parts of memory keeping. It gives me a chance to really process things that I’ve done or how I feel about my children’s accomplishments, etc. The writing becomes love letters to my children and my husband.

I don’t always scrapbook events as they happen. So many times, I use photos and stories from years past. Having some distance from the memory gives me a whole other perspective that I don’t often get when I’m documenting in real time. It’s truly therapeutic.

I’m preserving moments in time.

Have you ever picked up an old photo and noticed the old car in the background? Or the old TV? Or the wallpaper that Grandma used to have?

To me, that’s the beauty of capturing it all. Things change. Kids grow up, we move homes, we change jobs, we have different pets over the years. So many things change, and that’s probably my biggest why for scrapbooking.

I would love to know what it was like for my mom when she was a new mom. I would love to know what my grandma thought of having seven children. I would love to know how she took care of everything.

I try to record things like this. I’m often approaching my life as a bit of a historian. It’s a way for me to say I was here. I had a life, and this is what it was like.

I’ve made amazing friends, both online, and in real life because we share this hobby.

This has been the biggest benefit of all! There’s nothing better than meeting someone that totally gets my love of preserving my story.

There are so many great online communities of memory keepers, and so many awesome ladies running online classes and creating amazing products to use to document our stories. There are retreats and conferences dedicated to the craft, as well.

I’m SO EXCITED (and proud!) to announce that I’m on the 2018 Project Life Creative Team! Project Life is ONE WAY to document your life, and it’s the simplest way I know. I can’t wait to share my digital Project Life pages with the Project Life community throughout this year. And I’m even more excited to see all the new friends I make!

I’ll be sharing more about Project Life and my memory keeping journey as the year goes on. In the meantime, you can find out more about Project Life here.

Our culture is taking more photos than ever before, but for the most part, these photos don’t ever make it off our devices. Creating photobooks and scrapbooks helps to make our memories more tangible.

Memory keeping doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated. Simply pairing a photo and some words about the story are enough to preserve that moment for years to come.

Life is short, and no matter how much we want to remember, our memories fade.

How will you remember your life experiences?

I’ve created a list of 10 story prompts you can use to begin recording your story. Bonus points if you write down a memory AND pair it with a photo! Download the prompts here.

Hey Sweet Friend!

I show creative women how to reconnect with themselves and take care of themselves just as well as they take care of everyone else. If you've been feeling unfulfilled, I'd love to talk about how you can create a life you LOVE.

When you gather a group of women together, magic happens. I believe we are better together. Head over to my FREE Facebook group, Live Your Legacy NOW, where there’s tons of inspiration, support, tips & tricks for creating a life that feels more bold and fulfilling and where you can begin to plan the legacy you want to create.